Memnison Journal

Not-Surprise: Democratic leaders (such as Sen. Reid) reportedly pushed Blago not to pick a candidate for Senate (this was before the phone calls came out) that couldn’t win downstate, which included pretty much any of the main black players in Illinois Democratic politics.    Obama suggested others, including two of the same group: Illinois Veterans Affairs [...]

…now thinks that the nomination of Burris to the Senate is of vital importance To All African Americans everywhere, and he Just Got Over His Outrage at Blago.  I agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates on this; this is ridiculous.

Blago’s selection of Roland Burris as the new Senator from Illinois is an interesting pick, mostly from the direction of Blago deciding to stir the pot in a reaction against the Feds and everyone railing in the press and whatnot against him.

Roland Burris until this weekend had become a has-been in Illinois politics; he got [...]

From Dick Meyer at NPR on Blago and Made-off:
As audacious as Blagojevich’s political gluttony is, it is easy to find far worse political corruption, much of it perfectly legal: Distorting intelligence to invade Iraq, torturing prisoners, failure to regulate Wall Street, and systematic pork-barrel boondoggling come quickly to mind. If you’re feeling expansive, how about [...]

Lobbyists are gnashing their teeth and rending their garments; what are they to do without having a ready-made place to grease palms now that Ted Stevens is leaving the Senate?

To maintain an open line to Mr. Stevens, the association hired Ms. Sutherland, who left Mr. Stevens not long after delivering those warnings to open her [...]

Dayton officials say that an entry they put in a pile of stuff for a possible Obama-signable economic stimulus package for local jobs wasn’t supposed to be there - an initiative to get hookers off Dayton streets.  I can’t imagine the sort of jobs something like *that* would generate locally.
Wait, maybe I could.  *shudder*

W. Mark Felt obituary in the Washington Post.
“As Deep Throat, Felt helped establish the principle that our highest government officials are subject to the Constitution and the laws of the land,” the prosecutor, John W. Nields, wrote in The Washington Post in 2005. “Yet when it came to the Weather Underground bag jobs, he seems [...]

Here’s a list of US Senators appointed to the office since the Constitution was changed by the 17th Amendment to force direct election of Senators by the voters in 1913.  Of them, I’ve ony heard of Vandenburg (foreign policy dood of his time), Harry Byrd (icky racist), Happy Chandler, James Eastland (icky racist), William Knowland, [...]

Well, if you’d never heard of our Governor before, you have now.    My reflections on this inside.

From the Daily Kos, in regard to who Blago would pick to fill Obama’s now vacant Senate seat:
The list of possible names is a mile long: Reps. Jesse Jackson, Jan Schakowsky, Danny Davis and Luis Gutierrez, VA Secretary Tammy Duckworth, Congressional candidate Dan Seals, Comptroller Dan Hynes, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn, [...]

Some folks have mentioned privately to an earlier post that the idea of putting strings on a bank deal is a bit much.   And that there has to be other things that could be done to make them behave better.
Well, yes, in a couple of months, when a grownup who won’t be afraid of going [...]

Apparently Blago thinks that whoever he would appoint to Obama’s vacant Senate seat should be someone who would be a serious contender in a 2010 election for a new term.  He was interested, it seems, in Luis Gutierrez, but Luis said no, not interested in running in 2010, and that was that.
I honestly think, in [...]

Kosher meat production in the US has been hit - 65% drop in supply of beef.  Part is due to a fire, most is due  to a big processor in Iowa’s problems with raids on the plant by the Feds for employing tons of illegal immigrants, etc.
The skyrocketing IT presence in Bangalore, India is honking [...]

The AP and others are now declaring Mark Begich, the Mayor of Anchorage (D), has beaten Senator Stevens for the Alaska Senate seat.  The margin is too wide for a free recount, and it’s unlikely that the GOP will pay for it or Stevens can - or that it would make any significant difference.
The recount [...]

A sitting member of the house was a Democratic Congressman for five years *before* they changed their registration from Republican with the local Board of Elections.  Who is this person?
Name the last President that absolutely refused to use a telephone while in office.
Name the President that served in the Senate before and after his [...]